So it’s recently come to my attention that there are certain websites out there that have nothing better to do than to go around trolling the internet, look for pics that may be theirs, and then sue them. This pertains mostly to celebrity publicity photos.
You’d think it’d just be the big, charge money sites they’d be after, but even mom and pop blogs and tumblrs are not excluded. I was informed that a tumblr called dannation.org, which appeared to be a tumblr like most gay tumblrs (personal stories, news, and eye candy pics), was sued within the last couple of weeks for $100,000 for copyright infringement when they posted pics of Taylor Launter and Paul Walker years ago. And like you or me, the blog author doesn’t exactly have $100,000. So he was forced to shut down his tumblr of over 10 years, and now it’s completely gone (except his twitter).
There was a news story in the New York Times in 2011 about this practice (found thanks to Metalbond). I don’t want to be in this position any more than you would. So in the very near future, I do plan to comb through my celebrity posts and remove pics where I believe the source may be a publicity or newspaper pic. This may end up with quite a few pics gone, and slim posts in that topic.
I warn you about this so that if you want to go back and save any pics before they’re gone, now is the time. I plan to remove them in about a week, and a few other sites have already been taking theirs down. If you’re looking for a particular celebrity, please use the search feature. It’s actually pretty accurate.
This is not to say I won’t ever post celebrity pics anymore. But I will be more careful about the sources when possible, and it probably won’t be as often.
On a side note, and a much happier one, a reader informed me that in response to my tweet about now owning the original Batman TV series on DVD, he seemed to recall a single episode where Robin (actor Burt Ward) appeared barefoot, nursing a hurt ankle. Sadly, he couldn’t remember which one, just that it was the only time he recalled that Burt Ward revealed his feet on the show. While I haven’t seen every single episode (yet, lol), I certainly don’t remember ever seeing him barefoot. Does anyone have any idea which episode it was? If not, I guess I have quite a bit of hunting to do. Believe me, I will post a cap of it when I run into it. But it could be a while if I have to look for it on my own. There’s quite a few episodes to go through.
